Meanwhile: It's all right to be crabby, if you're old enough - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune

Someone accused me the other day of becoming progressively more obstreperous as the years go by. I don't care - I take it as a compliment. I have just read that becoming crabby after 60 might actually be a sign of superior intelligence.

Too good to be true? Not if you believe the findings of new research presented last week at the American Psychological Association Convention in New Orleans.

Working with 381 men and women aged from 19 to 89, researchers from Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, tested their subjects for intelligence and personality traits. They then matched up the scores and concluded that in older participants "agreeableness appears to be negatively related to intelligence."

It stands to reason, therefore, that "being older and unfriendly might actually equate with being smarter," the research paper said.

This may be the best news for senior citizens since Geritol. It's like a license to let rip.

I used to envy people over 60 who are willing to create a ruckus in shops and restaurants to demand better service or complain about the quality of goods. Now I am joining them, if only to prove my IQ is still functioning.

Just a few days ago I made an "insane" gesture at a driver who honked at me (waggling the forefinger at the temple). It wasn't much, but it's a start. He did the same back at me.

I have also been on the lookout for real-life proof of the Baltimore research. The elderly French are particularly adept at speaking their minds, so there has been no shortage of supporting data in my little study.

In Bordeaux the other day I saw a lady whacking her cane on the door of a post office that had closed at midday for an impromptu labor-union meeting. After making 15 or 20 dents in the metal door, she stormed off, beaming with satisfaction. She must have been quite bright.

A few days later I watched a woman about 65 complain in a restaurant that the chef's poor cuisine was "a blot on the reputation of France." The manager, unsure what she might do next, removed her truite amandine from the bill. Another high achiever there, for sure.

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My mother-in-law, for her part, rendered the manager of a restaurant in Cannes speechless when she complained that a portion of 11 green beans was a bit stingy at the price we were paying. "I suggest you put fewer roses on the table and charge less for the beans," she hissed. She is really smart.

There's more good news. The Baltimore study, co-authored by Thomas Baker, of York University, Toronto, and Jacqueline Bichsel, an assistant professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University, determined that the younger participants did no better than their elders on any of seven measures of intelligence. In fact the best of the elders scored highest of all on every cognitive test. "None of the adults was revealed to have any demonstrable age-related decline in their cognitive abilities," the study concluded.

Bichsel encourages youngsters to be more tolerant of the crabby Gray Panther types.

"You don't necessarily have to get on cranky grandma and grandpa," she told HealthDay, a medical Web site. "It may be good for them to be a little argumentative, and it may show they are retaining high cognitive capacity."

One psychologist has his doubts about the study, noting that smart young people can also be crabby. Richard Robins of the University of California, Davis, has found in his own research projects a "weak but consistent" correlation between disagreeable young men and women and high test scores. He wants the Baltimore group to try its theories on a larger sample.

There's clearly something real here about a fast brain and impatience with the modern world. In fact earlier research has shown that smart people of all ages tend to be more independent. Their self-confidence and self-reliance mean they don't have to make nice to get what they want.

An inescapable downside also emerges. Those sweet little old ladies in tennis shoes who are so nice to you might be a bit on the dim side.

The least you could do is be nice back, even if you are smart and crabby.

A version of this article appears in print on August 18, 2006, in The International Herald Tribune. Today's Paper|Subscribe